Starring: Monica Bellucci, Giuseppe Sulfaro
Director: Giuseppe Tornatore
Rated: M15+
THE centrepiece of the Italian film festival travelling around Australia at the moment is Malena.
The star of the title (Monica Bellucci) is the village beauty of Castelcuto, an idyllic fishing village on the Sicilian coast.
During World War II Malena’s husband joins the Fascist Army. Faithful Malena waits for his return.
Each day she walks into town for her groceries attracting admiring glances and adoration from the menfolk. Aware of her looks, style and poise, she is the silent siren of the village. The other women in the town resent her hold over the men.
Renato (Giuseppe Sulfaro) is on the verge of manhood, and along with the older boys in the village, he watches every move Malena makes and follows wherever she goes. He becomes obsessed with Malena.
Word arrives that Malena’s husband is missing in action presumed dead. The Nazis occupy the village and in return for sexual favours, Malena is well fed and looked after. Renato watches in horror at what Malena will do to survive.
At war’s end, Malena’s husband returns and the women of the village exact their revenge on the object of their men’s and the Nazi’s desires. Renato intervenes to help.
In 1988 director Giuseppe Tornatore came to international attention with Cinema Paradiso. He is famous for the lyricism and beauty of his films. Malena upholds this tradition. The camera work, lighting, use of locations and editing are all of the highest order. Everything about this film is large – cast, sets and scope. This is incongruous, however, given the simple coming of age/film noir tale it tells. Even Morricone’s lush score is too heavy for the story.
For all of its visual style, I have not been angered as much by a film in a long time.
This film revolves around Malena as an object of the male gaze – an object of sexual desire. Renato and his friends make a sport out of stalking her. Malena cannot leave her house without being subjected to voyeurism.
The problem here is not only that this film presents as normal a stereotypical view of Italian machismo. It is that this gaze in the film is never corrected, never challenged. Most objectionably it is celebrated. Malena is one of the most sexist films I have seen.
Whatever destructive decisions Malena makes concerning her sexual power she does not deserve to be scapegoated by these men and later physically attacked by the women of the village. This attack scene is emotionally and physically violent. In the classic tradition of film noir Malena is punished for asserting her sexual power.
Some people think that films are pornographic because of nudity and sexual activity. But pornography is more about the impersonal and humiliating gaze it endorses. If you need to be convinced of this, go and see Malena.
